


Steady

by KLStarre



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Dance, Gentleness, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24193273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre
Summary: "I wish I had asked him to dance with me."
Relationships: Erlin Kindleaf/Beverly Toegold V
Comments: 12
Kudos: 97





	Steady

**Author's Note:**

> This is short and should probably just go in my collection but I love my boys and they deserve their own post

The time for the Jamboreen has come around again, and the world is not perfect, but it is beautiful, and the fiddle is playing, and so Beverly asks Erlin to dance. A year ago, they would have been joining in with Beverlin and Moonwon, collecting patches and running through the swamp. But they are older, now.

“It would be my honor, dude,” Erlin responds, mostly joking but grinning anyway. His freckles stand out in the midday sun, and he’s let his hair keep growing. It’s to his shoulders now, the curls a tangled mass that he only occasionally bothers to care for. Egwene, having cut hers all off a few months ago, makes fun of him for it constantly. Bev likes to run his fingers through it, gently, untangling what he can.

They stand up together, and Beverly offers his hand to Erlin. Erlin takes it. He’s warm, and solid, and their hands fit together perfectly, covered in matching calluses from learning, together, how to hold a sword. Neither of them has held a sword in a long while, now.

Whoever is playing the fiddle slows the melody as they walk to the middle of the clearing. Everyone is here – Moonshine and Hardwon, Cran and Derlin, Martha Toegold, Egwene off somewhere pretending not to care. A long time ago, in a different world, the two of them might have been self-conscious. Might have waited to dance until they were alone.

Erlin places his hand on Beverly’s waist, and Beverly places his on Erlin’s shoulder, and for a second it seems like a story, their bodies fitting perfectly together and them understanding each other’s rhythm immediately, instinctually. At first.

Neither of them is a good dancer. They’d grown up learning to fight, not to perform, and they’ve certainly never danced _together_. The fiddle moves on to a new tune and Beverly trips over Erlin’s foot even though all they’re doing is swaying in place. He almost falls, but Erlin catches him, steady. They pause. They readjust. They laugh. Beverly looks at Erlin’s freckles and leans up and kisses him and Egwene materializes briefly from wherever she’d been hiding to throw out a “get a room!”

They try again. This time, careful to just sway and not take any steps in either direction, they focus. Erlin’s tongue pokes out a little bit like it always does when he’s focused, like it used to when he was struggling to hold a sword and shield at the same time, and Beverly squeezes his hand. “We’re gonna get our dancing patches,” he says, as Beverlin and Moonwon and a dozen other Green Teens run through the clearing, directly behind Erlin, chasing some sort of something.

Promptly, Erlin steps on Beverly’s foot, Beverly yelps, and Erlin casts Healing Word at the sound of pain, even though it’s just a bruise and there’s nothing resembling danger. Old habits die hard, but as far as habits go, it’s not a bad one to have kept. “Sorry,” says Erlin, when the spell is done and Beverly’s foot is glowing with a slight green that they watch fade.

They try again. And again. And again. They are teenage boys who have grown up in armor, and it takes time to find rhythm, to find grace. But they are also teenage boys who have grown up in war, and they are patient.

As the sun makes its way below the horizon, they complete a boxstep, and then another, and another, and they turn with it. They make it around half of the circumference of the clearing, focusing intently, and almost everyone has stopped paying attention to them, but Beverly catches a glimpse of Moonshine smiling proudly, applauding without noise, just for him to see. They make it the rest of the way around and then, without warning, Erlin tries to twirl Beverly, and Beverly figures it out just in time to go with it, to go apart and then together, catching himself against Erlin’s chest. They sway for a bit, and then Beverly twirls Erlin, apart and together, together, together.

One at a time, the stars come out. A breeze picks up. The fiddle dies down. And they dance.


End file.
